Our study confirms widespread cerebral volume loss in recently detoxified alcoholics. The effects of alcohol dependence seem to have equally adverse effects on brain morphometry in males and females.

Leptin is an important regulator of body fat mass and energy expenditure during adult life. The mechanisms by which maternal and fetal weight are regulated during pregnancy are poorly understood. In order to gain more insight into a potential role of leptin during gestation, a prospective, longitudinal study was carried out to measure leptin concentrations in maternal serum of 29 healthy women during pregnancy up to 6 weeks after birth and also in umbilical cord blood of their newborns. Leptin concentrations were measured using a specific RIA. In addition, estradiol, testosterone, and sex hormone binding globulin were determined using commercially available RIAs. The mothers’ skinfolds were determined at four sites using a Holtain caliper.Leptin levels increased continuously during pregnancy and reached 25.8 ± 14.7 ng/ml at 38–40 weeks. At birth, leptin concentrations were 23.5 ± 15.4 ng/ml. Three days after delivery a significant decrease of leptin levels to 10.6 ± 6.0 ng/ml was observed. Six weeks after birth the leptin concentration in maternal serum was 13.8 ± 8.6 ng/ml. At birth, maternal serum levels were significantly higher than levels in cord blood and did not correlate with leptin levels in cord blood or neonatal weight. Furthermore, leptin levels did not correlate with maternal sex steroids and sex hormone binding globulin levels. At 6–8 weeks of pregnancy, maternal leptin serum levels correlated significantly with BMI (r = 0.81). The correlation coefficients (leptin vs. BMI) dropped with increasing gestational age and at birth only a poor correlation persisted (r = 0.50). Six weeks after birth there was again a high correlation between leptin levels in maternal serum and BMI (r = 0.76). Subscapular skinfold thickness was correlated to leptin concentrations in maternal serum during the whole period of the investigation.In conclusion, maternal leptin levels continuously increased from 6–8 weeks up to 38–40 weeks of pregnancy. Maternal leptin levels decreased dramatically after birth. Six weeks after delivery, leptin levels were comparable to the values measured at the beginning of pregnancy. We hypothesize that leptin might play an important role during pregnancy and fetal development.

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Psychiatric conditions of emotion dysregulation are often characterized by difficulties in regulating the activity of limbic regions such as the amygdala. Real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rt-fMRI) allows to feedback brain activation and opens the possibility to establish a neurofeedback (NF) training of amygdala activation, e.g., for subjects suffering from emotion dysregulation. As a first step, we investigated whether feedback of the amygdala response to aversive scenes can improve down-regulation of amygdala activation. One group of healthy female participants received amygdala feedback (N = 16) and a control group was presented with feedback from a control region located in the basal ganglia [N(sum) = 32]. Subjects completed a one-session rt-fMRI-NF training where they viewed aversive pictures and received continuous visual feedback on brain activation (REGULATE condition). In a control condition, subjects were advised to respond naturally to aversive pictures (VIEW), and a neutral condition served as the non-affective control (NEUTRAL). In an adjacent run, subjects were presented with aversive pictures without feedback to test for transfer effects of learning. In a region of interest (ROI) analysis, the VIEW and the REGULATE conditions were contrasted to estimate brain regulation success. The ROI analysis was complemented by an exploratory analysis of activations at the whole-brain level. Both groups showed down-regulation of the amygdala response during training. Feedback from the amygdala but not from the control region was associated with down-regulation of the right amygdala in the transfer test. The whole-brain analysis did not detect significant group interactions. Results of the group whole-brain analyses are discussed. We present a proof-of-concept study using rt-fMRI-NF for amygdala down-regulation in the presence of aversive scenes. Results are in line with a potential benefit of NF training for amygdala regulation.